The German Social-Democrats on the Cadets

Published:Vperyod, No. 5, May 81, 1000.

      Published according to theVperyodtext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1965,

      Moscow,Volume 10,

      pages494-498.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Theliberal-bourgeois press throughout Russia is doing its utmost to convince
its readers that the Russian Social-Democratic “Bolsheviks” have
nothing in common with international Social-Democracy. They are anarchists, if
you please, rebels, conspirators. They still have a lot to learn from the German
Social-Democrats. They ought to recognise that the “parliamentary”
path is the main path, as the German Social-Democrats have done. This and
similar stuff can be read in the columns of dozens of Cadet news papers.

Theopen political struggle is still a novelty for the Russian public. The
Russian public does not yet know that it is the common trick ofthe
bourgeoisie in all countriesto assert that the socialists in their
particular countries are rascals, rebels, and so forth, whereas the socialists
in neighbouring countries are “reasonable” people. The French
bourgeoisie abuses Jaurès and praises Bebel. The German
bourgeoisie abuses Bebel
and praises Jaurès. The Russian bourgeoisie abuses the Russian
Social-Democrats
and praises the German Social-Democrats. It is an old, old trick!

Buthere are the facts.Vorwärts (Forward), the Central Organ of the
German Social-Democratic Party—which we get very rarely, thanks to the
“zeal” of the Russian police censors—recently published two
articles entitled “The Duma and the Cadets”. The editors not only
published these “Letters from Russia” as leading articles, but
even wrote a comment, stating that they contained “a true description of
the position of the Cadets in the Russian revolutionary movement”.

Letus see the assessment of the Cadets that the Central Organ of the German
    Social-Democratic Party regards as atrueone. We hope our
    readers will forgive us for quoting these lengthy excerpts, but Russian
    liberal newspaper hacks must be taught once and for all to stop inventing
    disagreements between the Russian and the German Social-Democrats.

“Untilquite recently,” we read in the article “The Duma and the
Cadets”, “nothing was heard about the Cadets. They were not to be
found where blood was flowing and bullets flying. They were not to be found
where the masses of the people, inspired by the heroism of the revolutionary
struggle, were sacrificing their lives, determined to die or win under the
banner of proletarian freedom. These realist politicians were too statesmanlike,
too far-sighted,to allow themselves to be carried away by the mass movement
headed by ’reprobates’, dreamers and revolutionary ’fanatics’. These
cool-headed, sapient phrase-mongers and tinsel knights of pseudo-liberalism, sat
quietly by their firesides. They shook their heads disapprovingly, fearing lest
the revolution should go too far and shake the ancient and sacred pillars of
bourgeois life, property, political decorum and order.“TheCadets have long shown their versatility in the flunkey’s art. At the
time of the Bulygin Duma they already dreamed of throwing a bridge between the
as yet ’innocent’ Witte and liberalism, which was brazenly flirting with the
foreign stock exchanges. Generally speaking, the stock exchange is the weak spot
of our Party of ’People’s Freedom’. Only a few days ago the Cadets were
indignantly denying the accusation that they were conducting ’treacherous’
propaganda against the new loan of many million rubles. And this is quite
understandable. When police tyranny was rampant, they tried to explain that it
was called forth by the conduct of the democrats. When fires and riots
organised by the camarilla were raging, they, with might and main, defend ed the
throne and the altar[1]from the attacks of the socialists, who
recognise nothing and deny and destroy everything.“Thencame the celebrated boycott, the great October strike the bloody
period of popular insurrections, civil war and mutiny among the armed forces
on land and sea. The Cadets were swept away by the great, purifying tide.“Then,nothing was heard of the Cadets. The knights of the golden mean ran
to cover. At best, they loudly protested and loudly complained; hut owing to the
raging revolutionary storm, nobody heard them.“Thereaction rendered the Cadets the greatest service. When the prisons
were filled again, when the Russian fighters for freedom were again being packed
off to a living death in exile, the Cadets found their opportunity. Their
opponents on the left were gagged. The Cadets got to the newspapers; they were
only slightly affected by the persecutions of the counter-revolution. Punitive
expeditions were not sent against them. Their houses were not razed to the
ground. Their children were not raped by Cossacks. The Wittes and Durnovos did
not apply tothem their ’pacification’ measures. It was not against them that
      guns and machine
      guns artillery and infantry, the Navy and the Cossacks were turned. And so
      the Cadets came into the foreground. The battle of words began. Polemics
      took the place of revolution; and in this field the Cadets proved to be
      past-masters and matchless virtuosos. They first and foremost hurled
      themselves into the fray against the revolution and the revolutionaries;
      they reviled the socialists and slandered the workers’ party. They
      polemised against opponents who were gaged. They flung accusations
      against those who could neither answer nor defend themselves. But Russian
      liberalism was not content with this. Through the mouth of one of its most
      prominent leaders it declared that the entire heroic liberation movement in
      Russia was the work of its hands: that the fall of the autocracy stands to
      its credit. The Cadets insolently claimed the glory for the deeds in which
      the proletarians had shed their blood. They decked themselves with the
      shreds of the tattered scarlet banner and proclaimed liberalism the soul of
      the struggle for liberation, the liberator of the country from tyranny. And
      although the prisons remained overcrowded, and gallows continued to
    be erected, the Cadets were loud in self-praise and furiously denounced the
    turbulent, audacious and reckless revolutionaries.

“Untilquite recently,” we read in the article “The Duma and the
Cadets”, “nothing was heard about the Cadets. They were not to be
found where blood was flowing and bullets flying. They were not to be found
where the masses of the people, inspired by the heroism of the revolutionary
struggle, were sacrificing their lives, determined to die or win under the
banner of proletarian freedom. These realist politicians were too statesmanlike,
too far-sighted,to allow themselves to be carried away by the mass movement
headed by ’reprobates’, dreamers and revolutionary ’fanatics’. These
cool-headed, sapient phrase-mongers and tinsel knights of pseudo-liberalism, sat
quietly by their firesides. They shook their heads disapprovingly, fearing lest
the revolution should go too far and shake the ancient and sacred pillars of
bourgeois life, property, political decorum and order.

“TheCadets have long shown their versatility in the flunkey’s art. At the
time of the Bulygin Duma they already dreamed of throwing a bridge between the
as yet ’innocent’ Witte and liberalism, which was brazenly flirting with the
foreign stock exchanges. Generally speaking, the stock exchange is the weak spot
of our Party of ’People’s Freedom’. Only a few days ago the Cadets were
indignantly denying the accusation that they were conducting ’treacherous’
propaganda against the new loan of many million rubles. And this is quite
understandable. When police tyranny was rampant, they tried to explain that it
was called forth by the conduct of the democrats. When fires and riots
organised by the camarilla were raging, they, with might and main, defend ed the
throne and the altar[1]from the attacks of the socialists, who
recognise nothing and deny and destroy everything.

“Thencame the celebrated boycott, the great October strike the bloody
period of popular insurrections, civil war and mutiny among the armed forces
on land and sea. The Cadets were swept away by the great, purifying tide.

“Then,nothing was heard of the Cadets. The knights of the golden mean ran
to cover. At best, they loudly protested and loudly complained; hut owing to the
raging revolutionary storm, nobody heard them.

“Thereaction rendered the Cadets the greatest service. When the prisons
were filled again, when the Russian fighters for freedom were again being packed
off to a living death in exile, the Cadets found their opportunity. Their
opponents on the left were gagged. The Cadets got to the newspapers; they were
only slightly affected by the persecutions of the counter-revolution. Punitive
expeditions were not sent against them. Their houses were not razed to the
ground. Their children were not raped by Cossacks. The Wittes and Durnovos did
not apply tothem their ’pacification’ measures. It was not against them that
      guns and machine
      guns artillery and infantry, the Navy and the Cossacks were turned. And so
      the Cadets came into the foreground. The battle of words began. Polemics
      took the place of revolution; and in this field the Cadets proved to be
      past-masters and matchless virtuosos. They first and foremost hurled
      themselves into the fray against the revolution and the revolutionaries;
      they reviled the socialists and slandered the workers’ party. They
      polemised against opponents who were gaged. They flung accusations
      against those who could neither answer nor defend themselves. But Russian
      liberalism was not content with this. Through the mouth of one of its most
      prominent leaders it declared that the entire heroic liberation movement in
      Russia was the work of its hands: that the fall of the autocracy stands to
      its credit. The Cadets insolently claimed the glory for the deeds in which
      the proletarians had shed their blood. They decked themselves with the
      shreds of the tattered scarlet banner and proclaimed liberalism the soul of
      the struggle for liberation, the liberator of the country from tyranny. And
      although the prisons remained overcrowded, and gallows continued to
    be erected, the Cadets were loud in self-praise and furiously denounced the
    turbulent, audacious and reckless revolutionaries.

Theauthor then goes on to describe the legal status of our Duma, the law
governing the Council of State and the part the Cadets played during the
elections.

“Thedear Cadets passionately desired evolution instead of revolution, law
and order instead of revolutionary anarchy and civil war.” But during the
elections the people gave
them a revolutionary mandate that was not at all to their liking.

“Likethe born diplomats and honest brokers they are, they consoled
themselves with the hope of being able to subdue the revolution, revive the
stock exchange, soften the rigour of the autocratic regime, reconcile all
antagonisms and eliminate all conflicts. They called for peace, but reality
brought something different. They came before the electors as
’Constitutional-Democrats’, but they were elected as anoppositionparty, as the sole or chief opposition party. They strove for a compromise, but
they were given a revolutionary mandate. They made fine speeches, but they were
sent to fight; they were compelled to give a pledge, and they were promised
every support, even to the extent of armed struggle.“Intoxicatedwith victory, carried away by revolutionary oratory during the
election Campaign, finding themselves in the midst of revolutionary voters, the
Cadets went further than they intended. They did not see that behind their hacks
a new force had arisen that was pushing them into the fight.“TheCadets realised too late who had sent them to parliament, who bad
given them such a categorically imperative mandate, who had imposedupon them the role that they dreaded most of all, and which they tried to
get out of with all their might. They had been sent by the Russian revolution to
clear the road for a further advance, they had been sent by the Russian people
who were using the Cadets as a battering-ram to make a new breach in the walls
of the autocracy, the main strongholds of which will be captured later, not with
the aid of the Cadets, but of the broad masses of the people.”

“Likethe born diplomats and honest brokers they are, they consoled
themselves with the hope of being able to subdue the revolution, revive the
stock exchange, soften the rigour of the autocratic regime, reconcile all
antagonisms and eliminate all conflicts. They called for peace, but reality
brought something different. They came before the electors as
’Constitutional-Democrats’, but they were elected as anoppositionparty, as the sole or chief opposition party. They strove for a compromise, but
they were given a revolutionary mandate. They made fine speeches, but they were
sent to fight; they were compelled to give a pledge, and they were promised
every support, even to the extent of armed struggle.

“Intoxicatedwith victory, carried away by revolutionary oratory during the
election Campaign, finding themselves in the midst of revolutionary voters, the
Cadets went further than they intended. They did not see that behind their hacks
a new force had arisen that was pushing them into the fight.

“TheCadets realised too late who had sent them to parliament, who bad
given them such a categorically imperative mandate, who had imposedupon them the role that they dreaded most of all, and which they tried to
get out of with all their might. They had been sent by the Russian revolution to
clear the road for a further advance, they had been sent by the Russian people
who were using the Cadets as a battering-ram to make a new breach in the walls
of the autocracy, the main strongholds of which will be captured later, not with
the aid of the Cadets, but of the broad masses of the people.”

TheCadets were displeased to see revolutionary peasant deputies in the Duma who
threatened to spoil their game. They had dreamt of a “unanimous Cadet
Duma”. ’Then it would have been possible to shirk the revolutionary
tasks somehow, to drown all real action in a flood of beautiful oratory.... It
would have been possible to confine themselves to drafting resolutions and Bills
and to obtaining—at most— a Cadet Ministry, consolidating a
constitutional monarchy, subduing the revolution through minor concessions,
dragging out all reforms to infinity, and at last reaching the goal:
bourgeois-liberal parliamentarism.... Yes, all this would have been possible,
had there been no peasants in the Duma!" And then the author goes on to
describe, some times in positively rapturous terms, the revolutionary spirit of
the peasant deputies in the Duma. “The revolution not only carried Cadets
into the Duma, it also created a ’Mountain’, a ’Party of the Mountain’, which
will not agree to compromise. The revolution is represented in the Duma, too."

“PoorCadets, poor Russian Girondists! They have fallen between the hammer
and the anvil, between the bayonets of the government and the revolution of the
proletariat and peasantry.“Nowonder the Cadets have now begun shamefully to hide their scarlet
trappings. No wonder they are now dropping their high-sounding slogans. No
wonder they have now begun to talk about respecting the prerogatives of the old
authority. The situation is becoming serious. The government is not in a joking
mood, and will concede nothing unless it is compelled to. But neither is the
revolution, which sent the Cadets to the Duma. It will never forgive the Cadets
their treachery. It will have no mercy on the poltroons who pledged themselves
to play a revolutionary role and funked it.“Onthe one side is absolutism, on the other revolution. What will the
Cadets do?”

“PoorCadets, poor Russian Girondists! They have fallen between the hammer
and the anvil, between the bayonets of the government and the revolution of the
proletariat and peasantry.

“Nowonder the Cadets have now begun shamefully to hide their scarlet
trappings. No wonder they are now dropping their high-sounding slogans. No
wonder they have now begun to talk about respecting the prerogatives of the old
authority. The situation is becoming serious. The government is not in a joking
mood, and will concede nothing unless it is compelled to. But neither is the
revolution, which sent the Cadets to the Duma. It will never forgive the Cadets
their treachery. It will have no mercy on the poltroons who pledged themselves
to play a revolutionary role and funked it.

“Onthe one side is absolutism, on the other revolution. What will the
Cadets do?”

Thusends the article with which the Central Organ of the German
Social-Democratic Party has expressed its agree ment. These
“reasonable” German Social-Democrats have putthe “Bolsheviks” frightfully to shame, haven’t they? Their opinion
      of the Cadets is totally different from ours, isn’t it? Our
      slogan—the revolution of the proletariat and peasantry—is
      nothing like theirs, is it?

Letour readers also consider whether we should find ourselves at odds
with such people in our appraisal of a Cadet Ministry.

Internationalrevolutionary Social-Democracy in its attitude to
absolutism and to the liberal bourgeoisie, is as united today as ever
it was!

[1]Inthe German text quoted by Lenin,Vperyodleft out the wordsThron und Altar(throne and altar) because of censorship.